The present invention relates to a drive for vehicles, especially to a four-wheel drive for motor vehicles with an engine that is installed in particular transversely to the vehicle longitudinal axis and whose output shaft is disposed essentially axially parallelly to an input and output shaft of a change-speed transmission, and in which a power-divider gear box with intermediate differential is connected with the transmission output shaft, whose transmission axis coincides with a vehicle axle.
A four-wheel drive for motor vehicles with an engine installed transversely to the vehicle longitudinal axis is disclosed in the European patent application 43 806, which includes a power-divider gear box with intermediate differential gear. In this power-divider gear, the output power flows from the output shaft of the change-speed transmission by way of a ring gear into the planetary gears, from which takes place the power-branching for the drive of the front and rear axles. With such a construction of a power-divider or transfer gear, only limited ratios of the drive torques of the front axle to the rear axle are possible by reason of the power inflow into the ring gear as well as the derivation of the output by way of the differential, on the one hand, and by way of the planetary gear carrier to the pinion, on the other. This construction is designed in particular for the purpose that a larger driving torque is to prevail at the rear axle than at the front axle with a front engine installed transversely to the driving direction.
It is the object of the present invention to provide a drive, especially a four-wheel drive for a motor vehicle, which involves a small space requirement and permits a large variation possibility of the output distribution to the two vehicle axles. Furthermore, the position of the drive for the second axle is to be variable, depending on the type of construction of the motor vehicle, without impairing the output distribution.